As many of you know, I think a lot about Neoliberalism, and the degree to which it has harmed our country. In the midst of this crisis, the anti-collective action, anti-government, libertarian nonsense this ideology represents becomes more vivd- and deadly.
It will cost my state, Washington, many billions of dollars to pay for the health care and broader economic damage this virus does to us. We need immediate action to build the capacity to do this, as does the nation overall. This will be very expensive.
What makes it most expensive though, is the fact that we have purposely built an incredibly fragile society over the last 40 years. By suppressing the wages of workers, lowering taxes on the rich, and eviscerating our governments capacity to respond to crisis-
Our country is like a tottering old skyscraper built on a foundation of twigs and sand. Most Americans can't afford to save $100 per month, much less withstand 2 months without working, never mind health care costs. Meantime, the rich make off with more and more.
There is only one lever available to us to mitigate the impact of all of this on the country and the broader citizenry- a strategy we have not employed in 60 years. It is incredibly simple. Tax the fuck out of the rich. Trust me. We have tons of money.
The central economic fact of our time is that over the last 30 years in the USA alone, the rich have grown $21 trillion richer, while the bottom 50% have grown $900 billion poorer. We've got plenty of money to pay for sick leave, heath care, student loan forgiveness,
infrastructure, small business loans, etc, etc. All you have to do is go get it. It is sitting in the bank accounts of the top 1%, who have never done better. If we are not collectively talking about this as part of the response to this crisis, we are not facing facts.
Will the rich squeal? Of course. That's just what we do. We're the "job creators" after all, and according to us, the less we do for you, the better off you will be. Moral hazard and all, you know. But C'mon. You need to rise up America. Your lives depend on it.
